


(killing time)

by forfree



Category: Performer/Actor RPF
Genre: Multi, tbh there's probs other relationships to come but
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-15 18:55:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7234561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forfree/pseuds/forfree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An eighteen-year-old Beyoncé + an eighteen-year-old Drake + one summer job at a roller skating rink = ?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. i. a new path is forged

“So, Miss B, what led you to apply for a position here?” the man sitting in front of Beyoncé asks. She looks around the office she’s sitting in, taking in the wood paneling on the walls, the taxidermied duck sitting atop a file cabinet, and the nameplate on the man’s desk. James Kirk.

 

“Please, call me Beyoncé,” she replies, her tone pleasant but firm. She really disliked it when strangers were lazy enough to shorten her name.

 

“Will do, my apology,” Mr. Kirk says.

 

“To answer your question, Mr. Kirk, I was motivated to seek employment here because I’m not the kind of person who’s satisfied with spending the entire summer doing nothing,” Beyoncé tells him, “In addition, since I love to skate and be around people, I figured that I’d-”

 

“Your enthusiasm is admirable,” Mr. Kirk interrupts with a laugh, “but you’re not applying for a job at a law firm, you’re applying for a summer job at a roller rink. Lighten up.”

 

Beyoncé chuckles.

 

“Obviously, I have to ask this- are you good with children?” Mr. Kirk asks.

 

“I’d say that I am. I’m not scared of them and they’re certainly not scared of me,” Beyoncé answers.

 

“That’s great. One more question, Beyoncé.”

 

“Ask away, Mr. Kirk.”

  
“Can you start today?” 


	2. late night reflections

Beyoncé follows Mr. Kirk to a row of lockers on the back wall of the break room and watches as he takes a set of keys out of his pocket.

 

“I hope you like the color blue, Beyoncé, because you’re gonna see a lot of it while you’re here,” Mr. Kirk says as he stands on his toes so that he can unlock a cabinet and pull a couple of shirts out of it. He throws four of them in Beyoncé’s direction.

 

Beyoncé catches two of the shirts and fumbles with the others. “I love it.”

 

She stands in the doorway and looks out at the empty rink and the space surrounding it; aside from her friend Carmen and her sister Solange, the entire area was void of activity. She’d asked Carmen and Solange to stick around with her since Mr. Kirk decided that there was no better time to go over Beyoncé’s application than the time that the rink was almost closed. It’s technically the girls’ fault, since they made the decision to come to the rink so late.

 

When Mr. Kirk had started giving her a tour, people had already started leaving. The employees had already left because Mr. Kirk had assured them that he could close up by himself since he needed to show Beyoncé around anyway. Everyone is gone at the moment.

 

The emptiness of the building startles her more than a bit. She’s always been so used to visiting when it’s buzzing with activity, and she feels as if she’s being shown something that she’s not really supposed to be seeing as she becomes acquainted with everything that goes on behind the scenes.

 

“You’ll get to meet Aubrey and Leonard and Nyota and Usher everyone else when you come in tomorrow,” Mr. Kirk says. “You’ll love them.”

 

At the sound of his voice, Beyoncé is pulled out of her thoughts. Though she barely heard any of what he said, she nods as if she has because she wants to be polite and does not want to be embarrassing by asking him to repeat himself.

 

“I hope you’re not nervous-”

 

“Nope, not at all!” Beyoncé interrupts. “I’m excited.”

 

“Well, you have no reason to be. You’re going to fit right in,” Mr. Kirk says, checking his watch. “Oh, dear, it’s late! You and your friends should be getting home. I’ll see you out.”

 

Beyoncé thanks him and tells Carmen and Solange that they’re leaving, to which they reply with ‘Finally!’ and ‘I’m sleepy, damn.’ Beyoncé chuckles.

 

Beyoncé drops Carmen off; her mother shouts at her for getting her daughter home so late but the scolding is in jest. She drives Solange and herself home but takes the long way instead of her usual route and rolls the windows down so that the cool wind blows through their hair as they drive.

 

Solange sings along to the songs she’s listening to on her phone, and every so often Beyoncé joins in.

 

“You know, Solange,” Beyoncé begins, “you have a beautiful voice.”

 

Solange stops singing and gives Beyoncé a smile. “You think so?”

 

Beyoncé nods. “You ever think about becoming a singer?”

 

“Yes!” Solange eagerly exclaims. “I’ve even written some songs and stuff.”

 

“Really?” Beyoncé replies. “Like what?”

 

“Well, I’ve got this one song I’m writing. I don’t know what to call it yet, but its unofficial title is, ‘Played Around With Your Heart,’ and I think it’s the best song I’ve ever written,” Solange says.

 

Beyoncé shakes her head as she pulls into their driveway. “You’re gonna be a star, girl. I know it. Now, I want you to go to bed as soon as you get inside. You know you’re out past curfew.”

 

Solange gripes and groans at Beyoncé for enforcing the rules but still does what she’s supposed to do once they both go inside.

 

Beyoncé is so tired that, by the time she gets to her own bedroom, she’s too tired to do anything other than set an alarm on her phone and take her shoes off before she falls onto her bed with a dull  _thump_. She looks at the stuffed animals that sit on the dresser across from her bed.

  
“Y’all,” she says to them, voice low and dreamy, “I’ve got a job.”

 

She laughs and rolls over, falling asleep promptly.


	3. acquaintances

The sound of Beyoncé’s alarm causes her to sit up in bed so fast that she hits her head on the headboard.

 

“Fuck!” Beyoncé hisses.

 

She wants to throw her phone out of a window because of the mind-numbingly annoying sound it’s making, but she can’t. Her mother would kill her. She looks at the time and sees that it’s nine o’clock.

 

Beyoncé shakes her head and hops out of bed, wriggling and writhing and jumping around to get out of last night’s clothes as fast as possible. She washes her face and opts to brush her teeth in the shower. She forgets that she has to wait a few seconds for the water to heat up after she turns the shower on and shrieks when she steps in and is reminded of her forgetfulness. The cold water on her skin wakes her up completely.

 

She hums a few tunes as she goes about her shower routine, and she’s feeling so happy that she even belts out a few victory tunes as she steps out of the shower and gets ready to go to work.

 

“I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T, do you know what that mean, man?” Beyoncé recites loudly as she pulls her jeans on.

 

“Yeah, Bey, it means, ‘SHUT UP, I’M TRYING TO SLEEP!’” Solange exclaims, pounding on the wall that her and Beyoncé’s rooms share.

 

“If you ain’t on, sit down!” Beyoncé continues loudly, knowing that she’s bothering Solange.

 

She fetches one of the shirts that Mr. Kirk gave her the previous day and slips it on, looking at herself in the mirror hanging on her wall. The shirt’s a little looser than she’d anticipated, but she still makes it work by bunching up the loose fabric that comes down past her hips and putting it in a loose knot behind her back.

 

“Damn, Bey,” she says proudly as she looks at herself. She then sees her hair, which is quite a mess, and grimaces. “‘Damn, Bey,’ is right.”

 

She messes around with her hair, putting it up in a ponytail. Her face scrunches up at the way it looks in the mirror, so she decides to let her hair down and try and tame it enough to make it look presentable. Her loose and dirty blonde curls fall to her shoulders and tickle them as she shakes her hair out and makes a silly face at herself in the mirror.

 

She puts on her shoes (they’re Nikes, Air Force 1’s to be exact) and struts out of her room and into the kitchen, where her mother is reading the newspaper.

 

“Momma, your daughter is a now working woman,” Beyoncé says proudly.

 

Her mother lowers the newspaper and gives her a once-over and a smile. “Oh, I see,” she says, impressed, “Good job, Bey.”

 

Beyoncé grins excitedly and rushes around the kitchen, grabbing a box of Cocoa Puffs, a bowl, some milk, and a spoon. She makes her cereal and starts to scarf it down quickly.

 

“Beyoncé, slow down!” her mother chastises, her stern expression softening into an amused one quickly.

 

“Work starts at ten and it’s nine-thirty,” Beyoncé says through a mouthful of chocolate cereal.

 

“I heard “ten” and “nine-thirty,”” Beyoncé’s mother says. “Stop talking with your mouth full, honey.”

 

“Sorry,” Beyoncé tells her after chewing her food. “I’m just- oh, man, I’m so excited.”

 

“I can see that, Bey. You’re really excited about working at,” her mother squints as she reads the lettering on Beyoncé’s shirt, “Good Time Skate.”

 

"I am!” Beyoncé agrees.

 

“Okay, well, finish your breakfast and get going, you don’t want to be late-”

 

Before her mother can get her sentence out completely, Beyoncé is near-tossing her bowl in the kitchen sink and running back to her room to brush her teeth one last time and get her lip gloss, cell phone, wallet, and car keys. She almost trips because she’s trying to walk around and apply her lip gloss at the same time, bolting to the kitchen to give her mother a sticky kiss on the cheek.

 

“Love you, Mom, bye!” Beyoncé shouts as she runs for the door. “Bye, Solange!”

 

* * *

 

 

Beyoncé gets into her car and has to force herself to sit still. “Slow down. Don’t speed,” she says, checking her mirrors. “Can’t look presentable on your first day if you don’t even make it ‘cause you’re in a car accident.”

 

She takes a deep breath, starts her car, and pulls out of her driveway. She turns on the radio nodding her head and tapping her fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of the songs that play; rays of sunlight stream through the windows, casting different shapes on her face as she drives past the trees that the light filters through.

 

As Beyoncé finishes up the relatively short drive to the rink, anxiety sets in. She knows for a fact that she can handle working at a skating rink, but no matter how hard she tries, she can’t shake her fear of possible underperformance. Mr. Kirk’s advice about lightening up crosses her mind and puts her at ease- somewhat. She’ll take whatever she can get, though.

 

* * *

 

 

Beyoncé pulls up to the roller rink and parks in the back. She gets out of her car and texts her mother that she’s arrived at work before taking a deep breath and walking inside of the building through the back door like Mr. Kirk had advised her to the previous night.

 

As she walks through the door, she’s instantly greeted with the distant sound of chatter and laughter. She puts her phone and her wallet in a locker in the break room and psychs herself up to meet the people she’s going to work with as she peeks at them from the doorway.

 

The doors were set to open in twenty minutes, so they were lounging around and talking to each other, and by the looks of them, Beyoncé thinks that she could fit right in. With that, she breezes into the room that the other employees are passing time in.

 

“Hey, Mr. Kirk,” A boy says as he hears Beyoncé’s footsteps. His back is turned to her because he’s fixing the decorations on the wall.

 

Everyone else in the room snickers.

 

“Drake,” another kid says, trying to catch his attention. Beyoncé reads his nametag. His name is Leonard.

 

Drake turns around. “What, Leonard?” he asks. He notices Beyoncé immediately and smiles at her kindly. “Hey, Leonard, who’s this?”

 

Beyoncé finally gets to have good look at Drake. He’s fit, but she could tell that the gym wasn’t something that was on the top of his priority list. He’s got nice hair.

 

He’s tall, too.

 

If one were to ask Beyoncé what she’d thought about him, she’d tell them that he certainly wasn’t bad to look at from a distance.

 

Leonard gestures in Beyoncé’s direction. “This is- well, damn, I don’t even know your name and I’m trying to introduce you.”

 

“Oh, wow, how rude of me not to introduce myself,” Beyoncé admits bashfully. “I’m Beyoncé.”

 

“Beyoncé,” Leonard says, drawing each syllable out exaggeratedly and smiling. “I’m Leonard.”

 

“I saw your name tag,” Beyoncé replies, returning a smile.

 

“Good! This is Nyota,” Leonard says, gesturing to a girl sitting on the counter of the info desk and looking at her phone. Every few seconds, she pauses and flicks an unruly brown curl out of her face so that it can rest with all of the other ones that sit atop her head. “Nyota! We’ve got a new person here, stop trying to get Britney Spears to tweet you back for five seconds and say hello.”

 

Nyota makes an annoyed noise at Leonard and shuts her phone off, hopping off of the desk and going to shake Beyoncé’s hand. “Well, you obviously know who I am,” Nyota says with a laugh. “Hi.”

 

“Hi,” Beyoncé says with a smile.

 

Leonard looks at his watch. “Damn, it’s almost time to open up- let me go through everyone else real quick. That human-slash-tiger hybrid over there is Usher, who is also our mascot,” he says, pointing at a boy who’s got the bottom half of a tiger costume on. “Usher, Beyoncé, Beyoncé, Usher.”

 

“Hey,” Usher says coolly.

 

Beyoncé waves.

 

“This bottle blond,” Leonard begins again, pointing at a boy sitting behind the info desk, “is Sam.”

 

Sam pulls his hair into a ponytail and waves at Beyoncé, who waves back at him right after.

 

“Sam, when’s the last time you got a haircut, huh? Ninth grade?” Leonard teases. “Like, damn, Goldilocks, cut your hair.”

 

“Fuck off, Leonard,” Sam says, rolling his eyes.

 

Leonard laughs at Sam before turning back to Beyoncé. “Anyway, Alanis is somewhere in the back. She’s probably eating her breakfast or something.”

 

Beyoncé hums thoughtfully. “Alanis. I like that name.”

 

“Yo, Alanis, come say hi to Beyoncé!” Leonard shouts.

 

Alanis rushes out of one of the back rooms with a muffin in her hand. “Beyoncé! Nice to meet you. I’d shake your hand, but my hands are full.”

 

Beyoncé smiles. “No, no, it’s fine.”

 

“And,” Leonard says, drawing the word out, “Angela is in the sound booth messing around. Angela!”

 

Beyoncé looks out onto the rink and sees someone’s head pop up as Leonard shouts.

 

“Hi, Angela,” Beyoncé says across the room, “I’m Beyoncé!”

 

Angela runs a hand over her hair, which is buzzed, and waves. “What’s up?” she asks.

 

“Good, we’re all acquainted,” Leonard says. “Just in time, too-”

 

“What about Drake?” Beyoncé interrupts.

 

“Oh, yeah, Drake. Drake, come say hi to Beyoncé!” Leonard says.

 

Beyoncé realizes that Drake had been awkwardly standing in the same place since Leonard had first spoken to him and she has to hold off on laughing.

 

Drake strolls over to Beyoncé and shakes her hand. “Hi, Beyoncé.”

 

Beyoncé usually isn’t very shy around guys; in fact, things are usually the other way around. Something about Drake makes her feel jittery. She’s more intimidated than she’s shy, and she can’t understand that for the life of her. Maybe it’s his eyes- they’re kind and coffee colored, and Beyoncé finds that she really likes them.

 

She smiles at him, having to look up at him because of how tall he is. “Hi, Drake. It’s nice to meet you.”

 

Drake grins. “The pleasure is all mine.”

 

A few children knock on the glass door and smile when everyone’s attention is stolen immediately.

  
“Well,” Leonard says as he opens the doors for the kids, “our days have officially started.”


End file.
